Nintendo Wii Remote strap lawsuit – How stupid are these people?

The Nintendo Wii is massively successful, bringing casual gamers into the industry, and making Nintendo oodles of cash. But two years after release, an old issue has risen from the grave threatening to cost the Japanese company money and PR points. It seems those Wii Remote straps just aren’t strong enough for some people.

Almost immediately after the Wii was released in November 2006, an issue arose over the strength and reliability of the strap used to secure the Wii Remote to gamers wrists. A class action lawsuit claimed that the straps were breaking and the resulting flying Wii Remote was damaging equipment and people. Nintendo covered itself by offering to replace “defective” straps and the lawsuit quietly disappeared.

Now, two years to the month from when the original problem gained widespread attention, Gamecyte is reporting that a new class action lawsuit has been brought against Nintendo. The problem is, well, the same as last time actually, just with a few added bells and whistles.

Colorado resident Molly Elvig reportedly filed the suit on Dec. 2 claiming that all three versions of the Wii Remote straps are still failing to this day. The suit can be read in full here (pdf link) but it’s pretty much a repeat of the last one. One serious addition is the accusation that Nintendo has covered up evidence from the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the group in charge of the Wii Remote strap replacement program.

While I’m sure that straps on some Wii Remotes are faulty, which is bound to happen with so many millions of the damn things flying around, I do have to question the intelligence levels of the people who find the controllers flying out of their hands.

Wii Sports originally instructed people to “Swing hard to make sure you clear the net!” and other pieces of bad advice. And Nintendo was probably wrong to encourage such idiotic actions, but as anyone who has even had one go on a Wii knows, all you need is a waft of the wrist to get the exact same on screen result.

Companies should be held responsible for faulty products or products that aren’t capable of doing the job, but I don’t think that’s the case with the Wii Remotes. Out of many millions sold, a few people seem to have acted like complete retards and seen their controller smash into the TV or grandma’s face. Is that really Nintendo’s fault or is it the fault of the stupid gene?

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